Unfortunately, a great deal of this piece is going to be entirely speculative. That’s okay, though. Sometimes it’s fun to speculate. I have a bit of a theory that I would like to speculate about, and that theory is that Roman Abramovich has known what he was doing all along.
Andre Villas Boas’ Hiring Indicates Roman Abramovich Had A Plan For Chelsea FC All Along
Though Chelsea FC have not yet made an announcement, it appears that Andre Villas Boas will be the club’s next manager. Roman Abramovich knows what he’s doing now, and he knew what he was doing all along.
When he hired Carlo Ancelotti and Luis Felipe Scolari, he knew that they were short-term fixes. When Avram Grant was appointed as a temporary manager, the view was towards continuity in a team that didn’t need to be blown up. When Guus Hiddink was brought in on a temporary basis, it was because the team was in need of a total turn-around.
Those managers were all short-term solutions, and they were good choices. For the last three years, Chelsea has been a club that is close to being in a transitional period, but still riding their old stars. Abramovich didn't know when Didier Drogba, Frank Lampard, and John Terry would finally get to a point when he needed to think seriously about replacing them. If he brought in a young manager who he was going to let build his own team from scratch, he didn't want to do it while those three players were at the top of their games.
This year, the proverbial excrement hit the fan. Chelsea were outside of the top four for a good deal of the year, dealing with serious injury and form problems with their older players. Thanks to incredible collapses by Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea got back into the Champions League with relative ease, but it was still obvious that it was time for a change. Their points total wouldn't have had them in title contention in any other season. Their early form and January purchases were a sign of things to come.
Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard are now 33 years old, while John Terry is looking an old 30. Michael Essien, now 28, has dealt with some serious injury issues and may never return to his status as one of the best all-around midfielders in the world. Ashley Cole is still looking very fit for 30 years old, but the downswing has to be coming soon. Chelsea are a team who are about to enter a serious re-building process, and it seems like Abramovich wants a young manager who prefers attractive football to build a team over time. Enter Andre Villas Boas.
It seems likely that not only was Abramovich waiting for the right time to start his team’s re-building process, he was also waiting for the right manager. Prior to this last European season, there seemed to be a lack of up and coming young managers who were pegged for future stardom. The closest was Laurent Blanc, whose Bordeaux side took a nose dive in the latter half of the 2009-10 season before he left for the France job. Big clubs were hiring retreads and overrated managers who had some success with smaller clubs. Then, this season happened.
Not just Villas Boas, but Jurgen Klopp and Frank de Boer emerged as future stars of the profession. All three managers won domestic titles with very young teams that were assembled inexpensively, and all three teams play a very attractive brand of football. This is exactly what Abramovich was waiting for. Not only the right time to rebuild based on his players’ age and fitness levels, but also the right time to rebuild based on the availability of young, up and coming, potentially world class managers.
Now, Abramovich has his man. Finally, all of the stars are aligning. He has a young, up and coming manager that can be his Alex Ferguson. That manager prefers a very attractive brand of football. His long-time stars are now aging, and he can justify replacing many of them with younger players. If the club has a young manager and is bringing in young players to build a great team over the next two to three years, the fans will likely be patient with the club. It’s the perfect time and place for Abramovich and Villas Boas to take some time to try to build a dynasty.
But wait, there’s a bonus. Though I doubt that Abramovich considered this, he’s also making this move at a time when Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger both appear to be nearing the end of their runs as Premier League managers. Sure, there have been rumors flying around about the retirements of these managers for years, more so for Ferguson, but they have to walk away from the game eventually. When they do, Villas Boas will not yet be 40 years old. United and Arsenal could end up starting rebuilding phases when Chelsea is on year three of their re-tooling. This sounds like a recipe for success.
It’s a big leap of faith to assume that a 33 year old manager with no experience as a top-level professional football player and no experience managing in any of the top three leagues in the world is going to be a resounding success at Chelsea, but it’s one that I’m willing to take. Villas Boas has shown himself to be tactically astute and intelligent in the transfer market in his time at Porto, and Abramovich wouldn’t hire him if he wasn’t willing to be patient this time around.
Andre Villas Boas is a star, Abramovich is going to let him do things his way, and every other English Premier League team should be scared.
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